43rd Regular Session of the General Assembly of the OAS

"For a comprehensive policy against the world drug problem in the Americas"

The 43rd Regular Session of the General Assembly of the Organization of the American States took place from June 4th to 6th in the city of Antigua in Guatemala. Most of the 35 member states of the Organization of American States gathered for 3 days to discuss a problem that now affects every country in the region: drug trafficking.

The Declaration "FOR A COMPREHENSIVE POLICY AGAINST THE WORLD DRUG PROBLEM IN THE AMERICAS" shows the increased attention that member countries are devoting to prevention and a more integral focus on health, including prevention of drug use and treatment for drug users. The emphasis was on the problems that are causing the most violence and insecurity, which are all the ones involving trafficking of guns, drugs, people and money laundering, in other words, the drugs business.

There are now strategies based on a stronger approach to prevention, for a region as the Americas, with poverty affecting more than 28% of Latin America and the Caribbean[i], large migratory tendencies, unemployment, low educational levels among many.

After the General Assembly the new approach seems to focus on enabling member states to have a better control over different areas of the drug business. This control is to start regulating practices that have been deemed illicit in order to reduce the violence which, might mean to certain extent, a gradual legalization of different factors of drug trafiicking.

For more information about the resolutions and declarations adopted at the General Assembly, please visit the following link http://www.oas.org/consejo/GENERAL%20ASSEMBLY/AG43regular.asp